


Less than a Silver

by VespidaeQueen



Series: The Gravity Well [3]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Drinking, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, post-Deep Roads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2132919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Merrill has an unexpected visitor or two, Hawke doesn't want to go home, and Isabela provides better alcohol than the Hanged Man.</p><p>  <i>I figured that if you weren’t at the Hanged Man celebrating your return from the Deep Roads with hoards of treasure, and you weren’t at that charming hovel that you’ll certainly not be calling home soon, you’d probably be hiding out with a dear friend and you’d probably be in need of alcohol.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Less than a Silver

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the Deep Roads. A few passing mentions of romantic feelings - in particular, Merrill/Carver and Hawke/Anders - with no actual relationships having happened at this point. Also, written based around the concept of some of the lines that Leandra says after what happens to Bethany and Carver - or rather, how there are a number of lines that state or heavily imply that she blames Hawke for what happens.
> 
> As a note, this is the first time I've written from Merrill's point of view this extensively, and I'm very uncertain how I've done with her voice and characterization.

Merrill has only just finished straightening things up after supper – the rough wood table scrubbed _quite_ well and her one good plate and bowl thoroughly scoured – when there came such a knocking on her door that she is, at first, quite startled.

In her few months in the Alienage, Merrill has come to learn that her door is rarely knocked on, and that it’s rarely a good thing when it is.

The knocking came in fits and starts. There were two tentative raps, which Merrill barely noticed, then silence, then nine very harsh, very _loud_ knocks, then nothing. It is in that silence that Merrill finds herself _quite_ anxious, because that sort of knocking rarely means something good, and despite everyone’s assumptions otherwise, Merrill is neither stupid nor unaware.

“If you’ve come for coin, you really should go elsewhere,” she says, loud enough to be heard through the door. While she very much _hopes_ she won’t have to use it, she picks up her staff from where it rests beside the fireplace. “And if you’re here for something else, you’d do well to ask the rest of the alienage why they avoid this house.”

She tries not to let her voice waver, but Merrill tends not to do the best with making her spoken threats waver-free.

“I’m not trying to rob you, Merrill,” someone says through the door, and it’s a soft, familiar voice. It’s not Aveline and it’s not Isabela, and as Merrill doesn’t have many other female friends within the city, there’s only one person who it could be.

She pulls open the door with a smile on her face. “Hawke! You’re back! I didn’t even _hear_ anything about you being back, this is quite exciting! I didn’t – _oh_.”

Hawke looks like she has literally just crawled out of the Deep Roads, grime on her face and her hair hanging greasily around her face. She has the absolutely most _wretched_ look upon her face.

“Hi,” she says, raising her hand and giving a little pathetic wave, and without the door in the way Merrill can much better hear the choked quality to her voice. “I was out for a stroll and I thought, _oh, I should visit Merrill!_ I haven’t seen you in _weeks_ and that is a dreadful shame.”

“Absolutely dreadful,” Merrill agrees, opening the door wide. “I’ve just finished with supper, but if you’d like to come in, I have _water_ , which I suppose we could turn into something like tea if I heated it on the fire.”

Hawke makes a terrible little laugh, one caught high in her throat. It comes out much more like a sob than anything else. “Hot water sounds lovely, Merrill.”

She comes in, bringing with her a smell that is...rather horrid. Merrill tries not to wrinkle her nose _too_ much.

“I can heat a _lot_ of water, if you want,” she says, shutting the door behind her and replacing the locks. “It’s actually very easy to come by water here. I was surprised – I always expected that it would be harder, but there are these funny little things that lift water up from the reservoir. They’re very convenient. Much nicer than walking all the way down to a river and then having to lug water all the way back. Also it’s much nicer to have heated water than to bathe in an ice cold river, don’t you think?”

Hawke pauses, seems to parse through what Merrill has just said. Then she looks down at herself and makes a face.

“Oh. Ugh. I’ve so sorry, Merrill, I didn’t even think. I smell like _shit_ , don’t I?”

“Only a little,” Merrill says, then gives a gasp, hands raised to her mouth. “I’m sorry, that was terribly rude, wasn’t it?”

“No, I smell like shit.” Hawke tugs at the sleeve of her coat; it’s very stained. Her face falls. “And I think I’ve ruined my father’s coat.”

“Oh, Hawke, no. I’m sure we can fix it. The Dalish know all sorts of ways to get shit out of clothing.”

Hawke looks at her like she is trying to determine if she’s joking. Merrill isn’t, not at all.

“I’ll get water started,” she says, moving into the back room to get what she needs. There’s water there; she won’t have to any more buckets, but heating it will be its usual challenge. “You can sit anywhere, Hawke, it’s mostly clean.”

“Ah,” says Hawke. She tugs at her sleeve again. “I’ll just choose the dirtiest part then.”

“Oh, _no!_ That’s not what I meant!” Merrill feels absolutely terrible, but she hauls the bucket of water to the fire and tries not to put her foot further into her mouth. “Really, it’s quite all right. I only meant that – well – it’s just – I suppose you only just came back from your trip to the Deep Roads. What it exciting? I’m sure it was exciting.”

“ _Ah_ ,” Hawke says again, and Merrill blathers on regardless.

“I don’t think I could do it, all that time underground? It must have been very dark. Was it very dark?”

“Not really.”

“Was it very successful, then? Of course it was; you’re always so successful! I wish _I_ was half as good at things as you are, Hawke.”

Hawke doesn’t say anything to that. Merrill begins to think that she is digging herself some sort of hole.

“If you’re back, then I suppose everyone else is? It was very strange, not seeing any of you for _so_ long. I did very much miss you, and Varric, and Anders. And Carver,” she says, not as an afterthought, but because she does not want to make it sound like she had _missed_ him most. She hadn’t. Well. Yes. Yes, she had.

Hawke gives a small sob.

Merrill turns to look at her and sees tears collecting in the corners of Hawke’s eyes; as she watches they overflow, making little tracks in all the grit covering her cheeks. She stands there with eyes wide in horror as the water begins to bubble on the fire. Hawke doesn’t _cry_. Merrill has _never_ seen her cry.

“Oh,” Merrill says, feeling so very small, a strange little worm of anxiety building up inside her, because if Hawke is _crying_ then something is _wrong_. “Oh, Hawke. Did…did someone not come back?”

Hawke nods; she covers her face with her hands and bows her spine and Merrill’s heart drops further and further. She feels like it will fall right through her stomach.

“Was it…?” she starts to say, but stops because the name that she thinks of first is too hard to get out.

“Carver’s gone,” Hawke says, her voice quiet and choked and thick with tears. Merrill’s heart falls right out and thuds to the ground. Not literally, but that is what it feels like.

“Oh, _Hawke,_ ” she says, and is that the only thing she can say to anything? Oh? _Oh, oh, oh?_ But what can she say? _She_ hasn’t just lost a brother.

She feels an absolute fool as Hawke stands there, hands pressed to her eyes and her breath coming in small gasps. She takes a few steps over to her side, then rather awkwardly pats Hawke’s shoulder.

 _Okay,_ she says to herself, and she pulls herself together with a deep breath. Plucks her heart off the ground – metaphorically, of course – and steels herself.

“I’m going to wash your coat,” Merrill says determinedly. “And you’re going to take a bath, and then you can tell me absolutely anything – or absolutely nothing, if that’s what you prefer – about what happened.”

 

*

 

It takes a long time for Hawke to get clean. Merrill brings her more water – it takes so long that the bath maintains a mediocre lukewarm temperature, but it is better than icy water straight from the bucket, and Merrill is trying her best. The only soap she has is very harsh and smells strongly of lye, but it gets the job done, and when Hawke emerges from the back room she is very clean and scrubbed, and Merrill thinks that she may have taken off a layer of skin in some places.

She gives her the warmest blanket she has and sits her down in front of the fire, then gets to work on cleaning Hawke’s coat.

“You don’t have to do that,” Hawke says, her voice as raw as her skin. “Really, you don’t. I’m rich now, I can hire someone to do it.”

Merrill gives her a steely glare and Hawke shuts up.

Eventually, though, she starts to talk, and Merrill sits there with a stiff brush and Hawke’s coat and listens intently. She tells her about the Deep Roads and the darkspawn; she tells her about the taint.

Merrill thinks of Mahariel and Tamlen and her heart aches.

“So Carver is with the wardens now,” she says when Hawke has fallen silent once more.

“Yes.” Hawke’s fingers tighten in the edge of the blanket. “I don’t…I don’t even know if he’s alive. Anders said he…that he might…still not make it. But it was a better chance than…” She doesn’t finish the thought; she swallows and bows her head, and Merrill turns her eyes back to the coat.

“He will be all right,” she says eventually, surprising even herself. “Your brother is very strong. Very stubborn, too. If anyone can get through secret warden things that might kill someone else, he will.”

When she looks up, there is a very small curve to Hawke’s mouth.

“Thank you, Merrill,” she says. “You don’t know how much that means to me. How much this _all_ means to me.”

Merrill feels herself color slightly. “Oh, it’s no problem at all! I don’t mind; I don’t get enough visitors, and I _always_ have time for you, Hawke. I just…if it’s all right to ask, because you only _just_ came back – I’m a little surprised that you are _here_ and not at…home?”

Hawke looks away, into the fire, and she looks so very _very_ sad. “Well, you see, it’s very hard to stay at home when you’re the reason your mother’s upset.”

Merrill has nothing to say to that.

“She’s completely right, though,” Hawke continues, her fingers worrying at the edge of the blanket. “I should have left Carver behind. He wasn’t part of the business venture, I mean. Only he _wanted_ to go, so badly, and I thought that it would be _good_ for him. And, you know, family bonding time.” Her laughter is rough, like metal scraped upon metal. It’s very unpleasant. “I really misjudged the whole situation, and now my mother’s crying and she doesn’t….want me around.”

“Did she….did she actually say that?”

Hawke makes a tiny noise of affirmation. Merrill’s heart aches.

“She can’t have really meant it, though. Can she?”

That grating, harsh laughter again. Hawke doesn’t say anything, and that’s answer enough.

Merrill put the coat up in front of the fire to dry, then goes to dump the dirty water outside. She opens the door to find someone there.

“Hello there, kitten!” Isabela says brightly, one hand still poised to knock. “I was _wondering_ if you were still up at this hour.”

“Hello, Isabela.” Merrill smiles to see her there, though she is _very_ glad that she didn’t throw the bucket of dirty water at her. “I didn’t expect _another_ visitor tonight!”

“Another, huh?” Isabela’s eyebrows do a _thing_ and Merrill gets the sense that she was trying to insinuate something. “This I have to see.”

She sweeps past her into the house, not waiting for an invitation. “And _here’s_ the woman I was hoping to find. Did you know, this is the _third_ place I checked? You really do need to be more predictable.”

“Hello, Isabela,” Hawke says, and at least that horrible laughter is gone from her voice. Merrill surreptitiously runs outside, tosses the water over the edge of the alienage wall, and comes back in before she has missed _too_ much.

“You were _supposed_ to show up at the Hanged Man, sweet thing,” Isabela is saying, all hips and hands and perfect breasts. Not that Merrill is looking, of course. “I have it on good authority that you were _supposed_ to be there quite awhile ago.”

“Oh.” Hawke actually looks slightly sheepish. “I forgot. Are they very cross with me?”

Isabela tips her head, regarding Hawke carefully. “I don’t think _cross_ is quite the word. Did you know that certain dwarfs and apostates are _very_ cute when they’re worried? Because they _are_.”

“ _Eugh,”_ says Hawke, the corners of her mouth turned down.

“Well,” Isabela continues, one hand on one hip, the other holding – _oh_ , that’s a bottle of _something_ interesting, “I figured that if you _weren’t_ at the Hanged Man celebrating your return from the Deep Roads with hoards of treasure, and you _weren’t_ at that charming hovel that you’ll certainly not be calling home soon, you’d probably be hiding out with a dear friend and you’d _probably_ be in need of alcohol.”

“Am I the dear friend?” Merrill says with something akin to surprise.

“Of course you are.” And Hawke turns to smile at her, and this is a more genuine smile than she has given all night. “What did you bring, Isabela? Not that piss they serve at the Hanged Man, I hope.”

Isabela holds out the bottle with a flourish. “Why bring you piss when I can bring you _this_. Genuine Rivani spirits, aged since forever. I liberated a few bottles from a...friend some time back.”

“A _friend?_ ”

“Well. More like acquaintance made at knifepoint, but that’s really beside the point.” Isabela holds out the bottle to Hawke. “This is some bloody fine alcohol here, and I need people to share it with.”

Hawke gives a small, uncertain smile, one that seems like it could break at any moment, but she takes the bottle from Isabela. “I see you’ve already opened it.”

“Well, I _did_ have to try it before I came over. To see if it was any good.” Isabela sits down with a thump beside Hawke and pats the ground. “Come on, Merrill, we’re going to drink and give Hawke here a proper welcome back. By the way, Hawke, are you wearing anything at all under that blanket?”

“All my clothing smells like nug shit and other assorted types of shit, so _no_ ,” Hawke answers wryly. Isabela’s lips twitch into a smile.

“Wait! Just a moment, I’m _sure_ I have something that will fit you!” Merrill turns to the lone chest that holds her clothing. She is really not at _all_ certain that she has something which will fit Hawke.

She comes back with a tunic that _might_ fit her to see that Isabela and Hawke have begun passing the bottle of alcohol back and forth. Dropping the tunic into Hawke’s lap, she sits down and - only somewhat awkwardly - snags the bottle from Isabela.

 

*

 

The thing is. The thing. The thing _is_.

Merrill is not very good at drinking. Or at holding her drink. Drinks.

She is more than a little drunk, she thinks, and the room has gone all wobbly.

It is a nice sort of wobbly, to be certain, and Merrill enjoys it, even though she is not looking forward to how she will feel in the morning.

“There was a lot of _blue_ ,” Hawke is saying from where she is stretched out on the floor, her head in Isabela’s lap. She’s wearing Merrill’s tunic, which barely comes down to her hips and it stretched very tightly over her chest. “And red. I didn’t know lyrium is multi-colored.”

“Did you see any green lyrium?” Merrill asks, very curious. “Or yellow? _Oh_ , was there any lyrium colored rainbows?”

Both Hawke and Isabela laugh at that, and it takes Merrill a moment to realize she has mixed up her words.

“ _Rainbow_ lyrium,” she says. It sounds very silly. _Rainbow._ Rain _bow_.

“No rainbow lyrium,” Hawke says. “Singing lyrium, though.”

Merrill reaches forward for the near-finished bottle. “Lyrium sings?”

“Uh-huh. Anders said so.”

“ _Anders_ said so, did he?” Isabela cards her fingers through Hawke’s hair, undoing tangles. “And what _else_ does Anders say? Did you and Anders have lots of _conversations_?”

Hawke makes a groaning noise and covers her face. “ _Isabela_.”

“I’m only asking if you two talked, Hawke.”

“Well, we yelled.” Hawke doesn’t uncover her face. “Does that count?”

Isabela makes a _tsk_ ing noise with her tongue.

“He _is_ very grumpy,” Merrill says. It’s _true_. He’s grumpy and stubborn and last time he visited he shed feathers all over her floor.

“Yes, but Hawke thinks he’s _cute_. Don’t you, Hawke?”

Hawke makes a strangled noise that sounds something like _Isabela shut up_.

Merrill considers this. “He _is_ cute. Like some sort of sad, awkward bird.”

“An _awkward bird?_ ” Hawke looks up at her with something akin to horror on her face. “Merrill, _no_.”

“Awkward birds are _cute_ ,” she says, because to her it makes perfect sense. Anders wears feathers and he has such a long, pointy nose, and he looks a little like a bedraggled bird she saw in a marsh once. “But you have to watch out for molting.”

“ _Merrill_ ,” Hawke gives her a desperate look while Isabela laughs.

“Carver was grumpy and cute, too,” Merrill says before she can think to stop herself. “Like a mabari pup.”

“Oh, kitten,” Isabela says, her fingers stilling in their movements through Hawke’s hair. Merrill blinks rapidly.

“‘s okay,” Hawke says, but her eyes are sad again. “It’s okay.”

“I’m going to miss him,” Merrill says, and pats the only part of Hawke she can reach without falling over, which is her ankle. “But he’ll make a good warden.”

“I hope so,” Hawke says as Isabela steals the bottle away from Merrill. “I really, really do.”

 

*

 

Merrill wakes some time later to soft voices.

“‘s my fault,” Hawke is saying, her voice rough and raw. “Should have saved him.”

“Oh, sweet thing. It wasn’t your fault.” Isabela’s voice is very soft. Merrill idly thinks that she doesn’t sound drunk at all.

“My expedition. Should have told him to stay behind.”

“ _Bartrand’s_ expedition. And your brother is as stubborn as you. He wouldn’t have taken well to being left behind.”

“‘m so worthless,” she hears Hawke say in a voice that cracks. “I can’t protect them. Father, Carver, Bethany...my fault.”

“ _Ssssh._ ”

“My fault,” Hawke repeats, her voice softer. “Mother blames me.”

“It’s not your fault, Hawke,” Isabela says, more firmly. “If she blames you, that’s on her. But _you_ know it’s not your fault.”

“My fault,” Hawke says, and Merrill wants to listen more, but she’s so tired and so full of alcohol that she slips back to sleep, and, later, she’s never really certain if what she heard was real or just a dream.

 

*

 

Merrill wakes up to the sound of knocking on the door.

She is, understandably, quite sluggish, and her head aches terribly. She moves far too slowly, and by the time she has even considered getting the door, Isabela is already up.

“Oh, it’s you,” she hears someone at the door say as Isabela opens it, and Merrill is quite certain that the _someone_ at the door is Aveline. “And here I thought you lived at the tavern.”

“Not at the moment, no.”

There is a moment of awkward silence.

“Is Hawke here?” Aveline says, and Merrill twists around enough to see just part of the woman through the open door.

“Why, big girl, are you going around tracking us all down?”

“Just Hawke. Her mother was up at the Keep today, saying she disappeared.”

 _Oh_. Well.

“In that case, Hawke’s here. She’s fine, she’s asleep right now. You can tell her mother that she’s _fine_. And that she’s not drunk and dead in a ditch somewhere, if that’s what her mother was worried about.”

“Isabela.” There’s a stern note in Aveline’s voice.

“ _Aveline_. Just go tell the woman that Hawke’s all right, okay?”

“ _Is_ she all right?”

There’s another moment of silence. Merrill wonders how Isabela could answer that, because she’s not particular certain what the answer _is_.

“She will be,” Isabela says, and they exchange a few more words before she shuts the door.

“Isabela?” Merrill calls from where she’s finally propped herself up into a sitting position.

“Morning, kitten,” Isabela says, walking over and sitting down, fussing with a blanket to pull it back over Hawke’s shoulders. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” she admits, and she has. She’s also been much worse, though she doesn’t say that. “Isabela?”

“M _hmm?_ ”

“Do you really think she’ll be all right?”

Isabela is quiet for a moment. “That’s really up to Hawke, now isn’t it?” she says, her hand lingering on Hawke’s shoulder. “But she’s strong and stubborn, like her brother. I think they’ll _both_ be fine.”

“I hope so,” Merrill says quietly, and she really, _really_ does.


End file.
